The chief executive of the company that owns Soho’s famed Groucho Club is leaving amid a row over whether the celebrity haunt has “gone corporate”. Ewan Venters, the former boss of upmarket retailer Fortnum & Mason, will step down as chief executive of Artfarm, owned by wealthy Swiss art gallery investors Iwan and Manuela Wirth,…
Pharmaceutical giants are basically simple beasts. They toil away, discovering drugs to keep us well. Some turn out to be duds, but the winners comfortably outstrip the losers, giving them a flow of royalty income until patents expire or pirates flood the market with copies. On balance, though, the portfolios grow and so do revenues…
Jonathan Brearley is keen to impress that Ofgem, the energy regulator, gets it in terms of how people feel about bills. The first thing he tells me after we sit down for lunch at a quiet corner table is that he is on the phone every fortnight with energy customers to get almost a “pen…
Britain is beginning a three-day international summit with partners in the European Union and the United States on how to tackle risks to cyber security. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has gathered experts from “like-minded nations” at Wilton Park in West Sussex, starting today, to discuss ways to develop resilience against cyber threats…
The housing market is now bigger than its average size before the pandemic as first-time buyers return to the market, with further expansion predicted as interest rates ease and as people trade up. According to research by Savills, the estate agency, total spending on house purchases broke through the £350 billion barrier in the year…
I saw a second-hand Brompton bicycle listed on Facebook Marketplace in June and messaged the seller, asking to buy it. The seller seemed genuine and friendly. She said if I paid the £615 through PayPal using the friends and family option, the bike would arrive more quickly. I agreed and sent £615 to her. But…
What is the most efficient way to grow the economy and improve living standards? It’s a question that often triggers a sharp intake of breath from economists. The answer invariably involves capital. Too little capital has been invested by Britain’s private and public sectors over the past four decades. An average of 17 per cent…
Britain’s biggest site generating energy from waste has become the first to capture some of its carbon emissions as it works towards becoming “carbon-negative” by the start of the next decade. Enfinium, which generates electricity by burning unrecyclable refuse at two plants at Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire, is using carbon capture and storage technology, capturing a…
The Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold on Thursday after annual inflation in the UK held steady at 2.2 per cent in August. Official figures show that annual consumer prices were stable between July and August, when measured on an annual basis, defying some expectations of a slight increase to…